By the time Gray's white wings carried him back down from the night sky into the prison courtyard, several survivors were already outside pacing the grounds, too restless to sleep. He touched down smoothly on the concrete, the heavy clatter of his black medieval armor drawing everyone's immediate attention. Rick, Shane, Merle, and Daryl rushed over, flanked by a few others, anxiously asking how the mission went.
Gray unlatched the Nazgûl mask, letting them see his calm expression under the courtyard lights. He explained exactly how he had bypassed Woodbury's entire security perimeter, systematically executed their most corrupt guards, and cornered the Governor in his own office to deliver a brutal physical beating.
Shane listened, crossing his arms over his chest, before letting out a mutter. "You should've just put him down right then and there. A guy like that doesn't stop."
"If I see a single other Woodbury scout near our fences in the next few days, I will," Gray replied with absolute certainty. "For now, he knows the stakes."
As the crowd began to disperse, Big Tiny slowly approached Gray. His eyes were red, but his expression was deeply appreciative. "Gray... I finished digging the grave for my mom," he said quietly.
Gray gave a respectful nod. "Let's go."
He walked alongside Big Tiny to the quiet, designated burial plot near the edge of the prison grounds. Reaching into his system inventory, Gray materialized the elderly woman's body, gently laying her down into the freshly dug earth.
The core members of the group gathered around the gravesite, lowering their heads as they said a few quiet, meaningful prayers to give her the proper peace she deserved. Once the burial was complete, Gray headed back toward the RV. Daryl and Merle stepped up to help him unfasten the heavy, interlocking plates of the Servant's Blackened Armor, and Gray carefully stored the legendary gear away inside his vehicle.
Meanwhile, across the county line in Woodbury, the long, chaotic night was finally drawing to a close.
The heavy oak door of the main office slowly creaked open, and the Governor finally stepped out into the hallway. His face was a horrific mess of swelling and dried, caked-on blood from the metal gauntlets. The sight completely shocked his nearby residents and inner circle, who immediately rushed forward to offer medical aid. The Governor waved them off, accepting only a basin of water and a few clean towels to clean the blood from his skin and make himself look somewhat presentable.
Once he finished cleaning his wounds, Martínez stepped into the room, and he reported the full extent of the night's damage. "Sir, someone used explosives to blow up one of our main street blockades. We also found five of our guards dead at their posts"
The Governor's eyes locked onto Martínez, his jaw tight with agonizing pain. "How? How could anyone infiltrate this deeply if we had armed lookouts covering every single point of entry?"
Martínez shook his head, looking completely baffled. "I don't know. There are no signs of a breach on the walls. It's like a ghost just walked straight past us."
Wanting absolute, immediate answers, a rage took over the Governor. He began marching down the street toward the town infirmary, fully intending to drag the information out of Tomas and Andrew by force, and if they failed to give him what he wanted, he was going to execute them himself.
He threw the infirmary doors open, taking a step inside before stopping dead in his tracks.
The room was completely silent, save for a low, guttural snapping sound. Standing upright were the reanimated, pale-skinned corpses of Tomas and Andrew, their jaws gnashing aimlessly as they growled at the scent of living flesh.
The Governor didn't even blink. He drew his handgun, leveled the barrel, and fired two precise rounds into their skulls, dropping both biters back onto the floor.
Instead of getting the answers he desperately needed, all he had found were two useless corpses. The realization hit him like a physical blow. Gray had been the one who did this. The armored teenager had casually strolled into his secured infirmary, executed his assets, and left them as a twisted message.
In a fit of primitive rage, the Governor kicked Tomas's heavy corpse. 'Those stupid bastards,' he thought bitterly. The only thing they were supposed to be good for was providing a little bit of tactical layout info, but instead, their presence had dragged Woodbury into a war with a terrifying enemy who could infiltrate their town at any time he pleased.
The Governor stood in the middle of the blood-splattered clinic, staring at the floor for a few long, agonizing minutes as he recalculated his entire strategy. He finally turned his gaze toward Martínez, his voice low, raspy, and entirely defeated.
"Call them back," the Governor commanded quietly. "Tell every patrol to lay off the prison completely for now. We stay far away from their borders. We cannot afford to upset them for the foreseeable future." He sighed. "Not yet, at least."
The next day, Gray woke up right at 7:00 AM inside his RV and immediately opened his system interface.
[Status Info]
Name: Gray Ashwood
Age: 23 years old
Race: Human
Gold: 1,124,508,815
Gold per hour: 46,077,233 (25,598,463)
Gold Multiplier: 1.80x
Time: 7:01 AM
Watching the glowing numbers display a massive balance of 1,124,508,815 Gold. He smiled, feeling a surge of pure excitement at the realization that he was now pulling in well over a billion gold every single day.
Looking at the nine-digit figure, he couldn't help but remember the grim early days of the apocalypse, when he had to meticulously scavenge for basic cans of food and bottles of water just to save every single scrap of gold possible. Times had changed drastically. Without hesitation, he purchased the next massive passive income tier for 1,000,000,000 Gold.
[New Upgrade]
(1B Gold) 23'600,000 Gold/Hour
[New Hourly Rate]
88,557,233 (49,198,463) Gold/Hour
Closing the system overlay, Gray stretched and stepped outside into the morning air, coming face-to-face with the towering 10,000-gallon hard-plastic water tank securely in the courtyard. He walked past it and headed straight back into the cell blocks to wrap up his lingering projects.
Grabbing his spools of wire and tools, he focused entirely on finishing the remaining 20% of the electrical grid. Moving with expert precision, he spent the next four hours mounting the final switches, securing the breakers, and testing every light fixture across the left wing.
Just as the final corridor flooded with bright electricity, Dr. Edwin Jenner found Gray inspecting the main breaker box. The scientist looked more energized than he had in weeks.
"Gray, now that I see the prison finally has a stable power grid, I've been absolutely itching to get back to work," Jenner said. "I can resume my research on the virus, but I'm going to need the proper environment to do it safely."
Gray closed the panel door. "What do you need?"
"A Bio-Safety Level 4 containment laboratory," Jenner stated seriously. "Without proper isolation, handling live samples in a residential cell block is an extreme biohazard."
Gray pulled up the system shop and began scrolling through laboratory environments. After filtering through a few massive fixed structures, a highly practical option caught his attention, a fully mobile, self-contained BSL-4 trailer unit. It was a heavy-duty, reinforced transport lab, fully equipped with state-of-the-art containment tech. The only thing it lacked was an independent power source, which Gray knew he could easily remedy with a few Tech Reborn components.
Gray purchased the mobile lab and chose an open space far from the main cell block to spawn it, ensuring that any potential containment breach would be safely isolated from the community's living quarters. With a heavy hiss of hydraulic air brakes, the pristine, high-tech trailer materialized on the concrete.
Gray and Jenner walked up the metal steps and stepped inside the sterile environment. The lab was top-of-the-line, featuring advanced Negative Pressure Air Isolation systems to prevent airborne pathogens from escaping, a heavy-duty Chemical Autoclave and Decontamination Unit to neutralize waste, and rows of Ultra-Low Temperature freezers to preserve cellular structures.
Jenner looked around in absolute awe before turning to Gray and handing him a handwritten list of specialized diagnostic equipment he still needed. Gray skimmed the list and purchased the items directly from the store.
{Next-Gen DNA/RNA Sequencer} (70,000 Gold)
{Automated Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Thermal Cycler} (45,000 Gold)
{High-Resolution Cryo-Electron Microscope} (100,000 Gold)
The advanced machinery materialized seamlessly onto the sterile stainless steel counters. To get the facility online, Gray climbed up the ladder to the trailer's flat roof. He opened the store and purchased four Ultimate Solar Panels, a thick spool of glass fiber cable, and a high-capacity Tech Reborn battery unit. Working efficiently, he bolted the panels down, wired them into the battery bank, and ran the power feeds directly into the trailer's master breaker. The entire laboratory hummed to life with smooth, silent electricity, providing more than enough juice to run every single piece of diagnostic equipment simultaneously 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Jenner stared at the glowing monitors, a massive, brilliant smile breaking across his face. He was finally back in his element. "It's perfect, Gray. Absolutely perfect. Now, is there any chance we can go find some samples? I'm feeling incredibly rusty, and I want to start running tests as soon as possible."
"If you need completely fresh human infection samples, that's going to be pretty hard to get right now," Gray replied, crossing his arms. "But if you just need walker brains to study, we can get a few of those right outside the walls."
"Any biological material at the moment will help," Jenner nodded quickly. "I just need to get a baseline."
Gray nodded, but before he turned to exit the sterile lab, he paused. Doing some quick mental math regarding his massive daily gold accumulation, he looked back at the scientist. "Listen, Doc. In around seven days, I should have enough resources to try and bring your wife, Candace, back to life."
Jenner froze completely in his tracks, his breath catching in his throat as his eyes widened in sheer disbelief. "That... that soon?"
"Yeah," Gray said with a reassuring smile. "And once the lab is fully up and running, she can start working right alongside you again."
Tears welling in his eyes, Jenner choked out a breathless, deeply emotional response. "Thank you, Gray. Truly."
Gray simply gave him a respectful nod and exited the mobile lab, letting the heavy, airtight door seal shut behind him. He marched back into the courtyard and gathered Rick, Shane, Merle, and Daryl near the vehicles. "I need you guys to go out, capture a few live walkers, and bring them back intact for Jenner's lab," Gray instructed.
"You're not coming?" Shane asked, wiping a smudge of dirt from his new tactical vest.
"No, I still need to run the main water pipes through the prison corridors so we can finally enjoy hot showers soon," Gray replied.
As he mentioned the word showers, Gray's eyes naturally drifted over to Daryl. The younger Dixon brother was completely covered in a thick layer of dirt and layers of old road sweat. The man smelled absolutely awful. Gray's expression twisted into a look of profound, unshielded confusion.
Daryl caught the look, instantly frowning as he crossed his arms defensively. "What?"
"Daryl, how long ago did you actually take a shower?" Gray asked.
Daryl shifted his weight, looking away toward the forest line as he stayed completely quiet.
Gray let out a loud, heavy sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Man, you've had that RV parked in the courtyard for days now. The bathroom has hot water, a working showerhead, and soap, and you're still walking around smelling like shit. Look, once you guys get back from capturing those walkers for Jenner, you're going straight into that shower. We aren't running for our lives through the woods anymore. There is absolutely no reason for you to be this filthy."
Merle burst out into a loud, mocking cackle, slapping his brother heavily on the back. "Hear that, little brother? The boss says you stink! Go wash your ass!"
Daryl rolled his eyes, grumbling under his breath as he climbed into the back row of the parked INKAS Sentry alongside Rick and Shane. Merle hopped into the driver's seat, fired up the engine, and the four men drove out through the stone gates to hunt for samples. Gray watched the armored vehicle disappear down the road, turned back toward the cell blocks, and got right back to work running the plumbing lines.